Spooky Projects

Introduction to Microcontrollers with Arduino

Class 4
28 Oct 2006 - machineproject - Tod E. Kurt

Whats For Today

Switches without Resistors All about piezos Building a melody player Using piezos as pressure & knock sensors Using Processing with Arduino Stand-alone Arduino

Recap: Programming
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Like always, just make sure. Make led_blink come alive again. Do it. Trust me.

Switches w/o Resistors

AVR chip has internal pull-up resistors Instead of this:
+5V 10k to input
to input

You can just do this:

But how do you turn on these internal pull-ups?

This is sort of an aside, but it saves a lot of wiring.

Switches w/o Resistors

Answer: use digitalWrite(pin,HIGH) on the input

Arduino board pin 7 pin 6 pin 5 gnd A B C

but note, it doesnt work the other way: you cant set it to LOW then wire the switch to +5V.

Seems a little counter-intuitive, think of it as setting the default value of the input

Switches w/o Resistors

Can make a button box easily if no resistors are needed Plugs right into Arduino board

=
A B C

Piezoelectrics
Big word piezein is greek for squeeze Some crystals, when squeezed, make a spark Turns out the process goes the other way too Spark a quartz crystal, and it exes use this to Piezo buzzersback and forth, make sound (ex something it moves air)
Piezo buzzers dont have quartz crystals, but instead a kind of ceramic that also exhibits piezoelectric properties. I pronounce it pie-zoh. Or sometimes pee-ay-zoh.

Piezo Buzzers

Two wires, red & black. Polarity matters: black=ground Apply an oscillating voltage to make a noise The buzzer case supports the piezo element and has resonant cavity for sound

Oscillating voltage alternately squeezes and releases the piezo element. Must apply ucuating voltage, a steady HIGH or LOW wont work. diagrams from:
http://www.maxim-ic.com/appnotes.cfm/appnote_number/988

Whats in a Piezo Buzzer?

You can get at the piezo element pretty easily. Be careful not to crack the white disc that is the actual piezo Only take it out of its case to use it as a sensor

another $1.99 I wont be getting back from Radio Shack

Of course, you usually destroy the enclosure to get at the element. And its the enclosure that has the proper support and resonant cavity to make a loud sound

Piezo Buzzer
Arduino board pin 7 piezo buzzer + gnd

Piezo leads are very thin. The breadboard holes grab them better than the header sockets, which is why the jumper leads are used.

Play a Melody
sound_serial Play the piezo beeper with the Serial Monitor

Type multiple letters from cdefgabC to make melodies

This sketch is in the handout, and is based on Examples/pwm_sound/keyboard_serial Notice the problem with this sketch? Different notes play for different amounts of time. 50 cycles of low C isnt the same amount of time as 50 cycles of high B

Making it Quieter
Easiest way: add a resistor
Arduino board pin 7
(brown, black, orange)

10k

piezo buzzer

gnd

Like most things in electronics, if you want less of something, add a resistor. A better value would probably be 1k, but we dont have that on hand. This may not seem important now, but wait for the next project.

Play a Stored Melody

play_melody Plays a melody stored in the Arduino

This is in the handout, but is also in Examples/pwm_sound/play_melody (pin changed) Melody denition is sort of like the old cell ringtone style Melody playing logic is hard to follow.

Make a Theremin
ooo-weee-ooooo The original spooky sound machine
Works by measuring your bodys electric eld

No touching needed! Well use light in lieu of RF Leon Theremin

As heard on Star Trek, Beach Boys, horror movies, Mars Attacks!, and bad New Age songs. Works sorta like those touch switches, but no touching here. That is, your body becomes a variable capacitor.

Make a Theremin
Take photocell circuit from before, bolt it on

+5V

Arduino board pin 7

piezo buzzer +

photocell 10k

analog pin 0

(brown, black, orange)

gnd

This is a light-to-sound converter, if you will.

Make a Theremin
theremin Move hand over photocell to change pitch
Play with val processing & cycles count to alter sensitivity, pitch and timbre

This is frequency modulation, since youre changing the frequency

Okay so maybe it sounds more like a bad video game than a spooky movie The glitchy sound is cause because of the time it takes to read the sensor There are ways around such stuff, but requires more complex programming using timers & interrupts The sound can get annoying quick

Piezo Buzzer as Sensor

Piezo buzzers exhibit the reverse piezoelectric
effect.

The normal piezoelectric effect is generating

electricity from squeezing a crystal.

Can get several thousand volts, makes a spark You probably have seen a big example of this
already:
replace lighter
I have a demo piezo igniter from one of these lighters. Its fun to shock yourself. Puts out several thousand volts. (ionization voltage of air =~ 30kV/cm)

Piezo Read

To read a piezo you can just hook it into an analog input, but: You need to drain off any voltage with a resistor, or it just builds up You should have a protection diode to limit big voltages, else fry your inputs
piezo buzzer + 5.1v zener 1M
(brown, black, green)

Arduino board

analog pin 0 gnd

piezo input schematic

Note polarity of piezo still matters. The protection diode is a special kind of diode called a zener diode. It acts invisible until the voltage gets over its designed value (5.1 volts in this case), then it acts like a short circuit.

Piezo Read

piezo buzzer + 5.1v zener 1M

(brown, black, green)

Arduino board

analog pin 0 gnd

Create two little busses for GND and A0, and hook components across it. Black bar on diode indicates bar of diode.

Piezo Read
piezo_read Whack the piezo to generate a number based on force of whack
Waits for input to go over threshold, then to drop below threshold

Number is t, the number of times it looped waiting for the value to drop below THRESHOLD/2.

How Does that Work?

When a piezo is struck, it rings like a bell But instead of sound, it outputs voltage The sketch measures time above a certain
voltage, hoping to catch largest ring
volts piezo output voltage threshold

time whack! t

Depending on how fast you can watch the input, this technique works either really well or not that well. There are much faster ways of watching inputs that loops with analogRead() But for now it works okay

Custom Piezo Sensors

Can mount the element on anything
(oor mat, door, your body, etc.)

Heres one glued to a larger brass disc for a drum trigger

Take a Break
(see Craft magazine!)

Processing

Processing makes Java programming as fun & easy as Arduino makes AVR programming Started as a tool to make generative art Is also often used to interface to devices like Arduino

And its totally open source like Arduino. Processing GUI and Arduino GUI are from the same code, which is why it looks & acts similar.

Using Processing
First, install
Processing

Load up Sketchbook
Examples Motion Bounce

Press Run button You just made a Java applet

The Processing application folders are in the handout, no installation is needed. Also try Examples Motion Collision. Its a lot of fun. Notice how Run launches a new window containing the sketch. The black area at the bottom is a status window, just like in Arduino.

About Processing
Processing sketches have very similar structure
to Arduino sketches

Other functions can exist when using libraries

setup() set up sketch, like size, framerate draw() like loop(), called repeatedly

Processing & Arduino

serial communications

Processing and Arduino both talk to serial

devices like the Arduino board

Only one program per serial port

So turn off Arduinos Serial Monitor when connecting via Processing and vice-versa.

Processing has a Serial library to talk to

Arduino. E.g.:
port = new Serial(..,my_port_name,9600) port.read(), port.write(), etc. serialEvent() { }
Using the serial library adds a new function you can use to your sketch: serialEvent() The serialEvent() function will get called whenever serial data is available.

Processing Serial
common Processing serial use
four steps 1. load library 2. set portname 3. open port 4. read/write port 1. 2. 3. be sure to set to the same as Serial Port in Arduino GUI

4.

All you need to do talk to Arduino in Processing. The import statement says you want to do serial stuff. The new Serial creates a serial port object within Processing Then you can that object (or used the passed in one) to read from in the serialEvent() function

Processing & Arduino

arduino_ball
Every time a number is received via the serial port, it draws a ball that size.

Use piezo_read Arduino sketch from before

This sketch is in the handout. Uses serialEvent() and read() to build up a string and then parse it into a number with int()

Spookier, Please
arduino_ spookysounds
Every time the piezo is knocked... a scary eye opens and a spooky sound plays
piezo val is printed, but not used: just its existance is

This sketch is in the handout. You can add your own sounds (must be 16-bit WAV or AIFF). Hook a piezo up to your front door, and plug your computer into your stereo. Every time someone knocks on your door, a scary sound is played

Processing to Arduino
real quick

http_rgb_led

Fetch a web page, get a color value from it, send the color to Arduino with RGB LED

This is not to build, just quickly cover. Its not in the handout, but, full details at: http://todbot.com/blog/2006/10/23/diy-ambient-orb-with-arduino-update/

Fun Uses

External Power
Arduino can run off USB power or external power
External power connector USB connector

voltage regulator

jumper switch to choose power source

External Power
You can use an AC adpater Connector is standard barrel connector Make sure its center positive Voltage can be 9-15 V DC Amps is > 200mA
Actually input voltage can be from like 7.5V to 35V, but dont go over 15V so the voltage regulator doesnt have to work so hard.

center positive

External Power
Or you can use a battery

Be careful about polarity! And shorts!

On the prototyping shield you plug in on top, the 9V socket is called raw

External Power
An easier way to connect a battery

also solves polarity concerns

Power connector input has protection diode. Also its easier with the connector

External Power
Battery life
How long does Arduino last on 9V battery?

Arduino board draws about 40 mA by itself Each LED adds about 20mA when on Each servo maybe 100 mA when running Switches, pots, etc. are effectively zero Battery capacity rated in milliamp-hours (mAh) 9V batteries have about 400 mAh capacity

Thus, Arduino by itself lasts 400/40 = 10 hours

Take all your power, add it up, divide it into your battery capacity to get time in hours. There are techniques to make an AVR chip go into sleep mode, and draw microamps (1/1000 mA), but those techniques dont have nice Arduino-style wrappers yet. For more on batteries and their capacities: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_battery_sizes

Summary
Youve learned many different physical building blocks resistive sensors switches/buttons LEDs piezos servos

fast prototyping

Summary
And youve learned many software building blocks serial communication pulse width modulation digital I/O data driven code

analog I/O frequency modulation

multiple tasks

Summary
Some things we didnt cover, like:
+5V Arduino board pin 7 DC motor 1k TIP120 gnd gnd M 1N4004 Arduino board pin 7 1k TIP120 1N4004 +5V 5V relay

to load

motors

relays

But they use concepts you know

Summary
Hope you had fun and learned something

Feel free to contact me to chat about this stuff

END Class 4 http://todbot.com/blog/spookyarduino

Tod E. Kurt
tod@todbot.com

A little extra: MIDI

Combine everything, add a MIDI jack
Arduino board piezo buzzer + 5.1v zener 1M analog 0 gnd pin 7 pin 6 pin 5 pin 1 A B C

MIDI jack +5V

3 5 2 4 1

220

A little extra: MIDI

A little extra: MIDI

sends MIDI note-on & note-off messages

MIDI is just serial at 31250 baud buttons are drum triggers

end